After The Rain

I remember once being truly alive. It happened at the end of my first week in Frankfurt, and the impact it had on me was truly astonishing.

The late summer of 1992 presented itself to me in a myriad of forms as an emotional, cultural and climactic shock of sorts. I had already left a parched and weary England behind to be with a woman with whom I had fallen in love and would eventually marry, only later to divorce (and then almost re-marry; but who, sadly, left me for Italy).

I was full of hope. Life was still a big adventure, though, believe me, I’d already experienced ‘adventures’ enough. Rousing, inspirational, and, yet, also those which had darkened my soul, taking me right into the Abyss.

Still, there I was, living in the pre-Internet Age of Innocence. Tanned and lithe in denim shorts, Converse sneakers and a ‘Fruit of the Loom’ American T-shirt, making my way through a city full of foreign delights, exquisite Cappuccino bars and enticingly fascinating ice-cream parlours almost unknown to the grey and dreary London I had previously inhabited.

It was the hottest, sunniest day I can ever remember. You could pull all of the health, goodness and sustenance down from the most glorious of blue skies; and I felt as if I were tripping on an ethereal Light Fantastic. Germany, as it was. A Land of Hope.

And what an extraordinarily beautiful people. I wondered at the vigour and optimism of a Volk whose smiles spoke of things that could only get better, as if by the very ticking of the clock, second-by-second. They appeared as giants to me: a part-Spanish, part-Scottish Englishman. A Lilliputian with neither the language nor the stature to measure-up; and yet, feeling unbound. No ‘Gulliver’ I.
My girlfriend worked as a Licensing Repertoire Manageress for one of the world’s largest music companies. I was to visit her at around the close of her work schedule so she could introduce me to her friends. I was her trophy boy. The ‘cheeky chappy’ she had met in a Jazz club back in England on the last night of her short-haul visit home from Germany.

I’d proposed to her that night. We British men had our old-fashioned ways. Back then, we had to work awfully so hard to date hard-to-get demure English girls. But romancing a woman is what gentlemen, even young barflies such as I, did. It’s called ‘respect’.

I glanced at her with a wink, and she blushed. It was her friend, engaged to the saxophonist, who advised her I was “kind of cute.” My future wife took a long, furtive look at me from beyond the scope of her half-moon spectacles, tried in vain to hide her Mickey-Mouse T-Shirt by buttoning-up her blouse as if shamed by her girlishness, and then threw me a comely grin.

I knocked back a Scotch and approached her with a single glass of the champagne I saw she had been drinking.

“Well,” I said, “you know tomorrow’s a Saturday, and, at around about four o’clock, just after the bar closes, I think I may just find time enough to marry you. I could squeeze it in, but, it’ll be a tough number. What do you think, Kid?”

Why do women prevaricate so? I mean, shit, I was the best looking dude on the block. Why turn down a million bucks when a James Dean slaps it right in front of you and promises you a house in the Bahamas and a luxury yacht into the bargain? Do guys in bars ever lie to pretty women?

It took my girlfriend’s German telephone provider to convince her that, after two months of running up an inordinately huge bill, the economics of her either moving back to England or twisting me by the ear to live with her in Germany would contribute handsomely toward foreshortening her imminent bankruptcy. You can’t beat a major corporation for their compassion and empathy – all they want is our money, and it’s worthless. God bless them for their charity.

The sky darkened dramatically during my day’s sojourn in Frankfurt and the streets began to clear. A chill wind struck at my bones and a light breeze made play of flicks and flacks. The chirping of the birds that sang merrily in the eucalyptus trees lining the main Zeil Street had grown all but ominously silent.

Then came a blast of wind as one would perceive as presaging a non-too-distant nuclear payload. I held fast to a railing that encircled a bench and watched in awe as signposts, trashcans and all manner of debris took to the air as if Planet Earth had lost its gravitational force. I scrambled toward an alleyway but was blown down to my very feet.

Armageddon.

Suddenly, a woman, middle-aged and suave, grabbed me by the arm and took me close into the passage-way of a Tschibo café, already cloistered by huddled refugees of the storm.

“Don’t worry,” she told me in stuttering English. “It soon will all be over. Then comes the rain. Very much rain.”

The gale force lasted for around ten minutes, and the men and women muttered jokes I could not understand. But the woman held me close, for I stood on the outer rand and was the smallest and thinnest of those who had taken shelter.

The storm abated as quickly as it had visited itself upon the denizens of this formerly sunny town. Then a strange silence permeated all living things.

“The worst is over,” the lady told me. “But we shall all get very wet. Now you must go home and stay dry.”

Those without umbrellas scrambled for their cars or the subway. But I made my way to the Goethe Platz and stood under the shadow of the Great Man where I took the warmest shower of my life.

And soon it was over. The skies cleared and the sun appeared majestically as if his absence had been a tease, a test, a monumental joke. And the heat was intense.

I was unable to translate the dedication given over to this philosopher, the Shakespeare of Germany, etched in brass like words burned out of the substance of truth by the scorching heat of the newborn sun.

But when I looked into the eyes of this icon of German scientific, philosophic and literary endeavour, I thought I saw him cry. Perhaps I spied only raindrops. Yet I perceived in his eyes a sadness born of a foreboding he beheld for the people of Germany and England.

And then I heard the words:

"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain."